Chapter Two. Eshe #2
“I can’t lie,” I murmur, leaning forward and flattening a hand on his wide shoulder.
I release another hum, this one of pleasure, as heat from his massive body seeps through his long-sleeved black shirt to warm my palm.
Twirling my knife between my fingers, I balance myself on my hand, rising a little on my knees.
My pussy rails against me, practically weeping over the loss of his hard frame pressing between my legs.
Not that I can blame her. “I was kind of hoping you’d stay quiet.
I haven’t had a chance to practice my skills since I came out here.
You’ll do.” I lower the blade to his throat, at the last second curving upward to caress his jaw with the sharp edge.
“Wonder how many cuts it’ll take to get you talking.
Please don’t disappoint me, Huntsman. Hold out for a while,” I softly say.
Call it twisted, perverse, dark—I really don’t give a fuck—but a part of me wants to cut him. Aside from the obvious reasons; a bitch hasn’t forgotten about him coming here to off me.
No, I’m talking about the vengeful, hungry part that desires to punish him for making me crave him to the point where he’s a liability. My liability.
I know it.
Abena knows it.
After all, that’s why he’s here in my sanctuary, the hideaway my mother left for me.
By accepting this job, he provided my enemy with not just a way to kill me, but to hurt me.
Honestly, I don’t know which is the bigger sin.
“Let’s start again,” I say, pushing off his shoulder and rising higher on my knees.
Stroking a finger down the handle in a loving caress, I lower the knife to the base of his throat, just above his collarbone.
I catch his gaze drop to my missing finger, and it’s almost like a physical touch over the now smooth, nerveless skin.
That stare is calculating, judging, assessing.
“Oh, don’t worry, that doesn’t bother my balance or skill in the least. It’s a bitch doing pinkie swears though. ” I scrunch my nose.
His flat gaze flicks back to my face, and once more pleasure hums beneath my skin, spilling its honeyed warmth through me.
His life is literally in my hands, and the power of that—of knowing with one well-placed slice, I could end his existence, bleed him out—is an addictive aphrodisiac.
“What were her instructions? Kill me or bring me back?”
That frigid stare bores into me, and I smile.
And slice his skin.
Enough to sting. Enough to bleed. But just a little. I want this to last.
The barest flare of his nostrils. That’s all the reaction I receive. And honestly, I’m surprised he even gave me that. But then again, if every one of my senses weren’t attuned to him, to his special frequency, I would’ve missed it. He’s that good.
I’m better.
Tilting my head, I probe again.
“Instructions, Huntsman. What did she have planned for me?” I pause. “Nothing? Oh goody,” I breathe.
With a flick of my fingers, I cut him again, same spot, going deeper, widening the wound.
Yeah, that had to hurt. It bleeds harder, crimson fluid sullenly seeping from between the clean edges.
Dragging my attention from his sliced flesh to his face, I find that arctic stare still on me.
It’s damn near physical, and … and not so cold.
Heavy, deadly, promising retribution, but there are twin flames in those gray-blue eyes.
For some reason, the deadened nerves where my finger used to be throb in a phantom ache.
As if just one look from him ignites my pain, reconnects the memories of blood and torture like tissue and veins.
The breath evaporates in my lungs. The never-dormant ravenous need inside me stirs. He fuels dual cravings. Violence and lust. Torture and intimacy.
“What proof did she require you return to her?” I ask.
No answer, and the fuck you in his blazing glare doesn’t count.
I strike again, lacerating the taut skin under his chin. Blood bubbles up, slipping down the front of his neck. The hiss that releases from him is so low, so muted, I almost miss it. Almost.
My heart thumps against my sternum at his first overt reaction, and excitement howls a vicious war song through my veins. I jerk my gaze up to his and am incinerated.
By hate. Oh yes. He wants my throat under his own blade. Or his hands covered in my blood.
But there’s something else. Something more complicated than rage or hatred. Something hotter. Something dirtier …
No.
Confusion snakes its nebulous arms in and around my rib cage, sticky and clinging. And underneath, winding like a graceful yet devious vine, lurks suspicion.
And glee.
Hmm.
Those patrician nostrils flare, and the audible breath he draws in is the sweetest melody that has ever graced my ears.
Fuck my ears—it strums over my entire body.
Skimming over my skin like calloused fingertips, eliciting shivers and electrical shocks of pleasure.
My pussy hums in approval, spasming around an emptiness she finds inexcusable.
Dipping my head, I lap at the base of his throat where the trail of blood has already pooled. The metallic, salty flavor flirts with my tongue, filling my mouth, my nose. A growl, feral and low, rumbles against my lips, and it only stirs my hunger for more of his essence.
His chest heaves beneath me, and continuous growls emanate from him.
His hips punch upward, showcasing that beautiful, long, and hard dick pressing against his pants.
Oh, and it’s lovely. I almost purr in satisfaction at the sight of it.
I’m more aware than ever that a great predator lies chained beneath me.
Not that I ever truly forgot. These manacles in no way diminish the power he exudes like pheromones or that scent of leather, gun oil, and sun-warmed skin.
He’s Prometheus, bound to a rock. Captured but not lessened, not cowed. Still a dangerous, seductive threat.
Sitting up, I stare down at him, wiping the back of my hand across my mouth.
“You taste amazing,” I murmur.
“More.”
The order is so rough, so gravel torn that it’s nearly indecipherable.
I arch an eyebrow, running the blade over the pad of my thumb. “Oh, so you can speak. I was beginning to wonder.”
“Give me more.”
He doesn’t beg. No one with a single working brain cell could interpret that as a plea. Yes, I straddle him, but he’s issuing demands. And though I don’t bow to any living person, I want to surrender to him.
Because I want it, too.
So I give it to him.
“Lick it.”
Slowly, I obey, lowering my head and sucking on the lacerated flesh, groaning at the rich, briny taste.
“Fuck,” he snaps, and the chains at the head of the bed rattle. The sturdy black iron bedposts creak, but they hold. “Again. A-fucking-gain,” he snarls.
An instinctive who the fuck you talking to?
surges to my tongue. And only years of icy control hold me back from plunging the knife somewhere painful but not life endangering in his body.
But even that wouldn’t save him, just as the same restraint didn’t save the other mu’fuckas who’d dismissed my size and sex, then fucked around and found out.
No, only one thing is keeping him from becoming my personal pincushion.
Liquid heat doused in gasoline pours through me, swirling over my breasts and beading the nipples into tight, aching points, twisting in my belly, stroking my pussy …
The rigid steel in his tone should have me homicidal, not hovering on the edge of orgasm—but it does.
I’m teetering, and all it would take is a firm, lingering glide of my fingers through my wet, swollen folds …
a glance over my pulsing clit … and I’d tip over that edge.
Tip, hell—plummet. I’d plummet into an orgasm that I suspect would be better than half the sex I’ve had. And he hasn’t even touched me.
Somehow it seems fitting that I’m betraying my hardcore values—betraying myself—for this man. From the moment I first laid eyes on him two years ago, I’ve broken rules for him.
Lucifer’s fall from grace, if you believe in that kind of thing, has nothing on mine.
My tumble started a long time before finding him in the woods surrounding my cabin.
So why stop the plunge now? Especially when there’s only the two of us here and one won’t see morning.
“What do I get out of it?” I ask, letting my voice harden as I slowly lower and shift backward until my pussy glides over the obscenely large length and width of his cock.
Fire races up and down my spine, and I don’t try and contain my groan. He feels too good. Too necessary.
That groan slides into a gasp when he rolls his hips, thrusting against me. For a moment, I’m riding all that power, that strength, that … pure sex. It’s empowering, intoxicating.
And in that instant, with his dick grinding against my pussy, I’m drunk.
“Fuck,” I breathe, my knife nearly sliding from my grasp.
Blinking, I refocus on his too-angular, bold face and find that hooded gaze on me.
And for the first time in years, I battle the urge to fidget, to avoid, to … hide. Which doesn’t make sense. People see what I intend, what I project. Only one person could peer beneath the mask, and she’s been gone nine years. Yet I haven’t forgotten the feeling of being seen.
And I don’t like it.
“Is that your final answer?” I ask, harsher than I meant. “You’d rather give me a good, hard fuck than information about Abena?” My lip curls in disgust, but honestly, I’m kind of impressed by his loyalty.
Isn’t going to stop me from trying to break him though.
Who are you kidding? This isn’t about interrogation anymore.
I want to cuss my bitchy inner voice out. But I can’t. Not when it’s right.
At some point, this stopped being about grilling him and punishment and more about pleasure. His. Mine.
Ours.
I inch up his shirt, reveal a gorgeous, tightly muscled body riddled with scars. Given our time together, I’m eyeing them through a new gaze now.
“Tell me, Huntsman.” I continue to poke the predator, staring into his eyes even though it’s like peering into the deadly radiance of the sun. “You’d rather be my whore than hers?”
If he could rip free of those chains, I’d be a dead woman.
It’s in the subzero blast from his gaze. The damn-near-savage pull of his lips back from his teeth. The strain of his arms and body underneath me. He wants at me, and not to fuck.
To annihilate.
He could try.
And like others before him, he’d fail.
But, fuck, it would be fun.
Smiling, I whip out my hand and slice a thin cut above his pierced nipple.
A second later, I bow over his chest and suck hard on the wound and the small, taut light brown crest. His animalistic growl rumbles against my mouth, my breasts, my belly.
Giving him my own hum in return, I draw harder on his flesh, clamping my teeth over the silver barbell and rubbing my wet, swollen sex over the steely length shoving against the front of his pants.
Exquisite pleasure rolls through me like a thunderstorm, and I grind harder, writhe wilder.
The jangle of the manacles breaches the haze fogging my head, and after giving his nipple and cut one last long, indulgent lick, I lift my head, slide my tongue over my lips.
Well, now.
He no longer looks like he wants to murder me.
“Since you’re not feeling chatty,” I murmur, scraping my blunt nails down the corrugated ladder of his abdomen, “I’ll do all the talking. On your dick.”